Recently in a conversation with fellow illustrators I commented that I never painted a bike. After 23 years I've painted everything and everyone. A common thing such as a bike has never been assigned. A day later I received a call from Bicycle Magazine to do an illustration of a cyclist who is traveling down a road and entering a beautiful scene or vista.
I pieced together a quick digital sketch to show what I would go for and then started gathering reference. The main shot could not be used as is, so I had to alter many elements and if I could show you the original you would see the drastic difference between my art and the reference provided.

What I did not want to do was to paint every gear and detail of the bike so I tried to deal with it as an object or sculpture. This made the eye stay low on the bike and see the road and vista rather than WHO was riding the bike.

There are many Drawgers that love their bikes and are serious cyclists. Dale Stephanos being the main devotee but other are Leo Espinosa, Dave Flaherty, Roberto Parada and Harry Campbell.

As I continue to run and work through injuries everyone tells me that riding is the way to go. It certainly allows you to see more miles and do that quickly.
This what what I thought of as I painted the landscape.

Gears are a pain to paint. That and concentric circles. Occasionally I have to paint some sort of tire or dinner plate. It's always a challenge. The rims wobble a tiny bit.

The grass was fun to paint and will be featured in a future post here.

Here is the rough approved sketch. Things that had to change were all the things I don't know about. Wheels, pedals, gear in general had to be the right kind of stuff.